The Dancing Attendant

Ah, there you are...my champion,

With your wide, obsequious smile,

Brimming with solicitousness

And vulpine, self-effacing guile.

As I suffer your honeyed praise

With a knowing inner sigh,

I notice that your diamond smile

Doesn’t seem to reach your eyes.

Although I’d dearly love to think

This adulation is richly deserved,

I can sense the mockery

Hidden in those unctuous words

So I take your blandishments

With the proverbial grain of salt:

To succumb to such flattery

Definitely would be a fault.

I wonder what you’d say to me

If, someday, I fell from grace,

And the gods, in their mischievousness,

 Put you in my place?

~~© 2/2/2005 Thurman P. Woodfork~~